By
using Blogger (a
free blogging tool)which is
a part of Google, I can
also setupa reading list of other people blogs and get notifications of when
they add new material
to their blogs.(see dashboard)

It’s
fairly easy to start if you have a Google account. If you haven’t I strongly suggest you get
one, so you can better customise your Google experience.

To set up go to:Blogger - DashboardClick on new blog button and
give your blog a title, and an address.Choosethe template, customise and set up
theme and the
layout that
you want.

At any
time you can go to layout and change the layout of your pages and change the
template style.

You
can add gadgets to the page such as the ability to share on Google+,Twitter and Facebook and you can add a profile.

To create
regular posts (New Post) or Create pages.

Add text, media and hyperlinks within your posts or pages.

You can save, preview your work and make any alterations before publishing.

As you can see by some of the examples above there are many ways to use a blog to get your information out there. You can write stories about your families or share information on resources you have found or even have a journal of your research.

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Our AGM for 2012 was held Wednesday 9th May. A few changes were made while some jobs have remained unchanged. After a decade of being President Graeme Hickey has retired from the job. We appreciate the job he has done over the years. I have taken it up for another stint. I was President way back early in 2000. Jan Parker will continue to be Vice-President. Our tireless Secretary Barb Coleman is continuing her job with Raynor Thomas helping out as Minute Secretary. It was hard to find anyone to take on the Treasurers job but Jan Hickey was persuaded to continue the job with help from Barb Coleman and husband Graeme where needed.

Graeme talked about the prior year explaining that we didn't have much income this time and were unable to receive any grants. We are at about 40 members at present but may have to try and promote the group to get some new blood in. We have purchased a new computer and it will be set up in the rooms very soon. We will need to get rid of all the really old computers and printers to the recyclers. At our Christmas break up dinner last year we had a very interesting talk by Margaret Fleming who recently published the book "Gum Trees, Lagoons and Flat Plains", stories about the Yarroweyah district. Shauna Hicks kindly came and talked to us during the year and we greatly appreciate the time and expertise that she gives our group.

We have decided to make a few changes to our fees. We are keeping our membership the same but we will put the price up of our research. Non-members who come to our research will still pay a $5 fee to visit the room but will need to pay more if further research is done by our members. For our online/postal enquiries we will be asking for an initial fee of $20 and if any more detailed research is to be done this will be negotiated withe the enquirer.

Good News: "In the Days of the Punt" Vol1 and 2 are now ready for sale. Thanks to Norm Jordan for making the inserts and design for the CD's and I have finally edited the material and have digitised it into 2 pdf documents. The group has decided that the cost of the CD will be $25 plus postage and packaging. Go to our website for contacts and details of how to purchase one.

So plans for this year will be to get back to work on the local cemeteries. Tocumwal needs to be collated and put on to CD and Barooga which we have on sale in booklet form will also be updated and put on to CD. Also our website could do with a good overhaul. So stay tuned for more details on this. Sadly our bus trip to Melbourne had to be cancelled due to lack of numbers however we may organise a car load or a train trip in the near future.

Wednesday, April 18, 2012

After many years we have decided to publish a second volume of stories on the settlers and pioneers of the Cobram and Barooga area that have never been released before. This includes a number of Italian families who have come and settled in the area during the 1900's.These stories were gathered in the 1990's and where possible I have tried to verify the information from birth, death and marriage indexes, newspapers and any other resources available.

We will be selling the original version and the new version on a CD together as an electronic version. The original version of In the Days of the Punt was published in 1988. Due to rising printing costs it has been decided to sell it as an electronic version.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Notes from a talk given by Shauna Hicks at Yarrawonga Family History Group on October 2011.

If you have mining ancestors in your family you can add a lot of context to the history surrounding your family and even follow their movements as they moved around in search of gold or other metals that have been mined in Australia.

A rough guide to the times where gold was being mined in Australia's history is as follows:

To get a brief overview of an area it is often useful to use wikipedia to get an idea of the area your ancestors may have mined.

When searching in Western Australia a helpful index to begin with is called the Mining Lease Holders Index covering 1892 - 1909. It has been taken from a Mines Department Nominal Index to Mining Tenements (CONS 4603/6 – Record Series 1028) and provides the name of the lease holder, lease number, goldfield and date of lease holding.This index is on Microform and you may be able to access it through a local family history group or State Library.

In Victoria at the Genealogical Society of Victoria if you are a member you can log in to the Members Only section and search the index of Names. Here you will find Hospital Admissions on the Victorian Goldfields. Many miners were admitted to hospital for various injuries and illnesses. This index may be invaluable in giving you the birthplace and age of the individual their occupation and other information about their admission.This index has also been put on to a CD and your local family history group may have it available.

Other places to research your mining family members and the places they lived are through State Libraries, Regional Specialist Libraries such as the Bendigo Regional Archives Centre, Universities and Trade Unions.

The Trade Union Archives will also give you information about Union Members, Strikes and other details.

Looking for family that may have been involved in a Mining Accident and you are looking in Victoria you should certainly look at Dave Evans Mining Index. This is only a sample of a more detailed index that can be found on CD. You may like to see if your local family history group or library has it available.

Cora Webb has links to information about the Mining Occupation that will give you some background information to this occupation.

If you are looking for more information on the types of health issues that miners may have had such as phthisis and claims they may have made against the companies they worked for you should start with your State Government Archives.

If you are looking for photographs of your ancestors or of the area they mined around. Use your State Library, State Archives, University Archives and Picture Australia to search. You may also like to look at the Images from the Past on the Royal Historical Society of Victoria.

Finding detailed information about your Mining Ancestors may be hit and miss but there are a lot of resources that can enrich the family history of your mining ancestors giving your stories more detail and depth.

Wednesday, October 19, 2011

Notes made from a talk given by Shauna Hicks at Yarrawonga Family History Group on October 9th, 2011

There are many Australasian papers online these days but it
is still important to keep checking indexes of Newspapers. OCR technology used
to digitise and read the print on many of the poorer quality newspapers is
still not perfect and if you are doing a search of the newspaper you miss the
article or person you are searching for.
Some resources with guides:

Ryerson Index which currently has death notices, probate
notices and obituaries for 192 newspapers across Australia. These are mostly
current dates. - http://www.ryersonindex.org/

TROVE is the National Library of Australia’s online
catalogue. It is a good idea to register and log in to TROVE when you are doing
a search as it will allow you to search in “my library”, which enables you to
see where the nearest library to you has that particular resource and whether
you can do an inter-library loan. This will also allow you when searching and
looking at newspaper articles to create tags on articles and correct mistakes
in the text version of the articles. - http://trove.nla.gov.au

The National Library of Australia offers access to
approximately 94 subscription databases through their eResources - http://www.nla.gov.au/app/eresources
Anyone in Australia can register and receive a National library card. There are
many British newspapers available through this service including The London
Times, Burnley Collection, Illustrated London Times, 19th Century
British Collection, 19th Century UK Periodicals is found through the
Gale NewsVault. Note: When looking at very old newspapers and searching for
names containing s or ss don’t forget to substitute it with an f or ff. Eg
Harrison would be found as Harrifon.

Irish Newspaper Archives have newspapers from 1700 to
present http://irishnewsarchive.com/
This can also be accessed through the eResources on the NLA site.

Online Newspapers Worldwide has links to all kinds of
current or mostly recent newspapers worldwide. You could use these sites to
look at the real estate in the areas your ancestors came from or even possibly
put an advertisement in search of your family names. http://www.onlinenewspapers.com/
Remember you can use the Google Translate tool if you are trying to read
foreign papers. http://translate.google.com.au/?hl=en